Eat It: Lavender Chocolate

Sjaak's Organic Chocolates aren't all dairy free, but many are, so they're a popular treat when when we find enough change in the pay-phone coin return in the lobby of the TMI offices.

One of the most interesting confections Sjaak's makes is the Lavender Heart. It's a heart-shaped truffle of dark chocolate infused with real lavender oil. If that sounds like a soapy nightmare, it is not.

The lavender actually comes through in a subtle way, a summer wind to stir a romantic memory your brain has filed away. It's a lovely top note -- barely there alongside the bitter dark chocolate and never too sweet.

Find them if you can, or order directly from the Sjaak's site. Get these into the mouth area of your face soon and realize that your tongue has wanted to lick a meadow in the French countryside all along.

Hell, buy a tub and take them to book club.

TL;DR -- More Typing, Less Monkey

In scouring the unpaved service roads, blind alleys and drainage ditches of the information superhighway to put together this year's Halloween Frenzy, we accumulated a few items that, while strange or even a little scary, didn't fit within the tasteful orange and black boundaries we try to maintain.

That doesn't mean we don't want to share them. So welcome to our clearance sale.

First up is an ultimately sad tale all the way back from January of this year, so if it's a rerun to you, we apologize. But this tale of vorarephilia is fascinating. Canada's National Post reports of a man who sought help at a Toronto psychiatric hospital in 2012.

The man expressed a desire to be consumed by a "large, dominant woman." He wanted to be eaten. Most cases of vorarephilia involve the diagnosed party as wanting to eat others. So this man's case proved unusual and worth further study. There's so much more to this story, including a puzzling end.

***
From strange consumption to mass consumption: On October 10, Truth Dig reported on a horrible prediction from this year's Chocolate Industry Network Conference in London. The forecast for chocolate does not look good friends. Evidence mounts.

One day, future generations will only know of the confection through a few perverted tales and perhaps a candy wrapper on display in a temple somewhere. We try to make light of this situation because as the adage goes, sometimes laughing is the only alternative to tears.

***

All mythologies have end-of-days stories. Norse mythology tells of Ragnarok, the ultimate battle of the gods against the giants that will result in the death of Odin, the all-father, and the plunging of Midgard [that's Earth, y'all -- ed.] into endless dark, cold winter.

As it turns out, some Norse scholars in England think Ragnarok is about to commence, and they blew a symbolic horn to mark the beginning of the end, which should arrive 100 days from Nov 15. Thanks, guys!

Read all about it on the Daily Mail site, which features a ton of video ads, so adjust your volume accordingly. [And a tip of the antlered helmet to the supremely wonderful Walt Simonson for the late-breaking news lead.]

***
We end this three-course feast of strange with a chewy dessert called The Bus. It's been making the rounds at comics, writing and art blogs for the past couple months, and with good reason. It's a series of short comic strips by Paul Kirchner. We know nothing more about it or him. We could look him up and find out, but frankly, the mystery just adds to the charm of The Bus.

A Challenge

First, we remind you of the annual Countdown to Halloween, an aggregation of blogs that go bug-nuts with Halloween-related content all October long. You could lose your job, grow a beard, and get fat with ramen and cheap beer all because you spent your days exploring what the Countdown has to offer. Crucial. Stuff.

Second, our search continues for Ghost Dots. Any size will do, but especially the bag of fun-size boxes. The past two years have resulted in zero Ghost Dots at TMI HQ. Zero.

Reader, that is unacceptable. So if you find a store that stocks them in the Seattle area, drop us a message: typingmonkey AT live.com and let us know where you found them. Perhaps we'll send you a CD or .zip file of fun Halloween music as a thank you.

An office without Ghost Dots is no office at all.

What're We Having?

Everybody's in a lather about pumpkin-spice/pumpkin-flavored things. We like actual pumpkin quite a lot, both savory and sweet. And we'll even entertain a pumpkin-infused coffee beverage now and then because, why not? We got nothing to prove.

However, there's more than one "flavor of autumn" and tasty fresh apples are part of that array. Fall is also a time for bourbon. So if pumpkin can be attached to all manner of food and drink in the name of seasonal spirit, why not apple?

Thus, we created a new cocktail that everyone at The Typing Monkey office has been enjoying. We're calling it Betty's Little Helper, in reference to and reverence for both Ms. Crocker and apple brown betty. Here's the recipe so you can mix one up for yourself:

Betty's Little Helper
1.5 oz bourbon
1.5 oz spiced apple cider, chilled
Club soda, chilled

In a 6 to 8 ounce tumbler, pour the bourbon and cider in together, then top it off with club soda. Don't bother with a top-shelf whisky. Buffalo Trace was what we had, and it's good for blending. Any mid-level sipper does the trick.

You'll want to go nuts with the cider though and get something quality. R.W. Knudsen Cider & Spice* is our favorite, as it's 100 percent juice and isn't overly sweet. The spice levels in Knudsen's brew are well balanced too -- a glass of the juice on its own tastes like a slice of homemade apple pie.

We put the bourbon in the freezer for an hour to make sure it was corpse-cold, but that's a personal preference. The club soda dials down the bourbon's bite and relaxes the cider's sweetness. Plus, the bubbles tickle our nose.

If fancy is your goal, add a cinnamon stick for garnish. And though we haven't tried it, a splash of Tuaca would make a Betty's Little Helper a la Mode. Scumps!



*Knudsen's label says their cider is "Prepared in the New England Tradition." We don't know what that entails so we'll just imagine it involves barrel presses and John Forsythe standing around in a sweater-vest, flirting with Shirley MacLaine.

Oh Honey, We're Ridiculous

As the solstice approaches and each day we eagerly rise and pad down to the TMI corporate p-patch to see if the artichoke is still alive, we try to encourage all Typing Monkey staffers to take a moment and let the amazing wonder of the natural world grab hold.

That's not difficult, since most of them are drunk and/or high most of the time, but if that makes them more suggestible to the precise beauty of those pale-green spiders that climb nimbly over the stones in the fake river-bed, so be it.

After all, it doesn't matter that you've risen later than intended and are watching fast-talking dames on Turner Classic Movies via the break room television while you eat leftovers for breakfast. What matters is that you saw a hummingbird pause by the window and be-damned if the emerald beauty didn't seem like he stopped to look back at you.

With all that in mind, take a look at this list from Wikipedia of the crop plants that bees pollinate. (Bats get a few nods too in the non-bee items.)

Bees of the honey, bumble, solitary, and stingless variety all come into play, and if we could, we'd high-five them or send them a thank-you note because we eat most of the items on that list.

Oh, and the word for what those bees are doing? Entomophily.

[Image courtesy of PD Photo]

Candy News Bulletin

We interrupt our programming to bring you this special report on seasonal Dots.

As regular Typing Monkey readers know, Ghost Dots, and other Halloween variants of the Tootsie Roll Industries' excellent gumdrop, are a big deal at TMI headquarters.

So imagine our surprise when we discovered, while shopping at a Grocery Outlet this past weekend, Christmas Dots. Unsurprisingly, the holiday that won't shut up from Labor Day through New Year's Day, inspired just one holiday-themed Dot from Tootsie.

We are happy to report they're delicious.

Christmas Dots are cherry or lime, each capped with an opaque cap of vanilla, as if a tasty snow has dusted candy land. The cherry dominates the vanilla, giving a wallop of chemical fruitiness smoothed only a little by the creamy chaser. The lime fares better by tasting a little more balanced between "green" flavor and vanilla.

Yes, we realize that at the time of this posting, Valentine's Day is three days away. Tootsie Roll Industries has that covered.

But when a giant bag of fun-sized boxes of Christmas Dots costs just $1.49, you think we're going to pass that up? It's for science.

Look for 'em next year (or on clearance right now ... ahem) and if you can find the fun-size bag, as we did, know that the back of each box has a handy "to & from" tag, and for those with far too much time  on their hands, the boxes can be turned into ornaments.

Dinosaur Dracula Loves Halloween

We've pointed you toward a site called X-Entertainment before. It sounds NSFW, but it was about as harmless as the web gets. We refer to it in the past tense because Matt, the man behind X-E, has closed that site and moved on to Dinosaur Dracula.

And just like his previous site, DD catalogs toys, candy, cartoons and questionable breakfast cereal with both fondness and comedy. Plus Matt is a Halloween freak, purchasing, testing, consuming and reviewing just about every disposable-income item you might see on the shelves any given year during October.

Check out his new site and if you want to get a feel for what it's all about, we recommend the "Count Chocula Through the '90s" feature.

Fun fact: X-Entertainment's Countdown to Halloween inspired The Typing Monkey's own Halloween Frenzy ... and now we're sad.

It's Only a Gumdrop

Regular readers may recall the Ghost Dot Crisis of 2010, which spilled over into 2011 as well.

For the uninitiated, Tootsie Roll Industries makes a seasonal selection of their Dots candy, the best of which is Ghost Dots. During the past two Halloweens, they've been increasingly difficult to find, especially in the fun-size boxes one might hand out to trick-or-treaters.

Last year, on Nov 2, our legal team drafted a stern letter to Tootsie Roll Industries [ didn't intern Eileen just fill out a form on their website? -- ed.] and got a response within 24 hours from a nice lady named Susan:

"Thank you for contacting us. Ghost Dots were available, but apparently, no retailers in your area ordered them. Sorry."

We have yet to really scour the region for Ghost Dots, but found this Halloween candy page on Tootsie's online store, which does not bode well.

Those lonely howls you hear on Oct 31 may in fact be the agonized baying of all at The Typing Monkey, as we drown our sorrows in the pumpkin patch. Don't let us down, Tootsie Roll Industries.

Oh Snaps!

Food writing may be the most elusive of all critical skills in the world of journalism. Which is one of the primary reasons we rarely talk about edible goods here. But The Typing Monkey understands the value (and power) of a good snack and must share certain discoveries with our audience.

Today we encourage you to seek out Loucks Dark Chocolate Sesame Snaps, for they are delicious.

The Polish company's "plain" Sesame Snaps are perfectly yummy in their own way, and easy to come by. The basic Sesame Snap is a little wafer of toasted sesame seeds held together by sugar. They are simple and addictive.

For some odd reason the plain variety are usually stocked with the Asian foods in the grocery store, though a few shops have it right by putting them with the candy. Which is where you might take a moment to see if the store carries the harder-to-find Dark Chocolate variety.

As astute readers may have deduced, the Dark Chocolate Sesame Snaps employ dairy-free chocolate to enhance the snackery magic. The wafers are not coated or covered in chocolate. Oh no, friends. The chocolate appears as three diagonal stripes, as elegant as if they had evolved onto this exotic creature.

If you can't find Dark Chocolate Sesame Snaps locally, the Web indicates that they can be purchased and shipped to just about anywhere you might ship such things. Enjoy.

Robyn's in the Kitchen

Hey. It's November already. What have you done?

We've wrapped up another Halloween Frenzy and not a single Ghost Dot consumed. The Typing Monkey is disappointed in Tootsie Roll Industries' lack of enthusiasm for Halloween this year. If you'd like to send them a formal complaint or just beg, like Gerald Levert, for another chance at Ghost Dots, please do. We have.

And in the meantime, take solace is this distraction:


[Courtesy of favoritanton]

The video came our way via Cover Me. In the short week it's been on YouTube (at the time of this writing) there are already tribute videos. Erato has a Facebook and come from Sweden.

Of Donuts and Mushrooms

Today is October 1, 2011. Have you eaten a donut yet?

Once again, The Typing Monkey performs our civic duty by reminding our readers that October is national donut month.

We shall observe the commencement of this sacred time by enjoying a couple selections from Seattle's premiere vegan donut shop, Mighty-O Donuts. Vegan donuts, we said it. And we're proud. They're free of dairy, eggs and lard, but they'll still kill you if you eat too many -- a tasty death.

Before things get all spooky up in here with the commencement of the 4th Annual Typing Monkey Halloween Frenzy, we wanted to draw your attention to a recent study conducted by Johns Hopkins University of Medicine in Baltimore.

Researchers at the school gave human subjects psilocybin, the hallucinogenic compound found in so-called magic mushrooms.

The study found that even a small dose increased the subjects' level of "openness" -- a personality trait that's crucial to creativity and curiosity.

Further, a single dose increased those tendencies for nearly a year. The test group was small, but continues to bolster previous positive research by the school on the hallucinogen's affect on the human mind.

This is not an endorsement of the drug. However we found it interesting that academics in the United States are conducting this sort of research. Read the report here.


[Image culled from Chris A.'s deviantART gallery]

Water, Food, Fuel, Weapons, Chocolate

The Typing Monkey warned you once already. The cocoa deficit grows. When they come for your chocolate, how you gonna go?

Read more about it here.

The Great Ghost Dots Crisis of 2010

Fact: Ghost Dots are delicious.

In 2007 the Tootsie Roll company debuted this Halloween-themed version of their gumdrop candy, Dots, to much acclaim. Well, the staff at The Typing Monkey offices really enjoys them. The packaging [see below] promises G-rated candy fun.

The individual Ghost Dots do not have smiley faces or arms, nor do they glow in the dark. But they do retain an air of mystery by being all the same color despite boasting different flavors, all in the original Dots taste array of green, yellow, orange, light red, dark red.

Each year since the debut of Ghost Dots, we've sent our intern out to buy a couple bags. This year's sucker, Maire, came back empty handed. After scouring the greater metropolitain area, the sad truth is that this year, you can buy only the movie-theater style boxes of Ghost Dots. This also applies to the recently introduced Bat Dots (blood orange flavored) and Candy Corn Dots (the handsome scarecrow mascot makes up for the fact that they're candy corn flavored).

That's right. Try as you might dear reader, you won't find a bag of "fun-size" Ghost Dots this year to gorge on hand out to trick-or-treaters. We realize the crass nature of our plight, but our grief persists.

Please contact your local candy representatives and lodge a stern but well-worded complaint, and tell 'em The Typing Monkey sent you.

... Frenzy!

October. Regular readers know that means two things -- National Donut Month and Halloween. As in years past, we'll start the month off with a not-at-all subtle reminder:

[Image from the Wiki media commons -- allegedly these are pumpkin donuts]

For a little complement to the fried dough, and a breather before we dive headfirst into the orange and black cheer, here's a video from 1983 of the mostly female dub/reggae/pop group Amazulu, touching three of the globe's four corners:


[Courtesy of fritz51318]

Heart of (Chocolate) Darkness

In the not-too-distant future, chocolate will be currency. Don't believe us? Then why is this man buying -- and storing -- 15% of the world's cocoa?

Stock up on the good stuff.

Bein' Happy

January 21, 2010 marks two years of Typing Monkey blogging. We're going over the budget for the fiscal year in order to make sure we can keep this thing going.

In the meantime:

The Who

"Happy Jack"


[courtesy: coldhearted06]

Yeah The Who did Tommy and Quadrophenia. But this little one-off indicates that perhaps John, Pete, Keith & Roger missed out on an opportunity to do their own silly adventure in the style of Help! or A Hard Day's Night.

Bonus entertainment!

A fellow called "Seanbaby" has a Website with various pop culture remembries. It's arranged nicely and easy to navigate, even if the majority of it is lost on us. He does however, have a page dedicated to those Hostess advertisements from the back pages of comic books in which superheroes fight crime by handing out fruit pies. [Accompanying text is PG-13, and not terribly clever. But you can't beat those high-quality scans. -- ed]

Want Some?

The Typing Monkey has issues with Good magazine that aren't worth discussing here. But once in a while, they put something up that really is worth a look. Photographer Jon Feinstsein has been snapping various fast-food items, shot against a stark black background, and collected them into an exhibit called "Fast Food."

"8 grams" by Jon Feinstein

Peep the whole Good piece here, which has some interesting comments from Feinstein himself. Or just go to his Website.